


An Immodest Proposal

by nightrose



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Beating, Caning, Dom/sub, Heavy BDSM, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Safewords, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 11:58:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19425523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightrose/pseuds/nightrose
Summary: Grantaire is having a terrible day. Enjolras helps.





	An Immodest Proposal

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes:
> 
> This is a fic about two people in a loving, healthy relationship using BDSM as a coping mechanism for depression. That's a somewhat controversial subject within the kink community, and the comment section of this fic is not the place to have a rousing debate about it. If you find BDSM, including when one of the participants is suffering from mental illness, to be inherently abusive or unhealthy, please do not read.
> 
> There are mentions of depression and an off-hand mention of urges to self-injure and abuse alcohol.
> 
> The scene includes significant pain and impact play as well as verbal humiliation. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

Enjolras strokes a gentle hand down Grantaire’s back, which somehow manages to make him feel even worse. He wouldn’t have thought that was possible. If he’d been quizzed, he would have said he was at the peak of misery. But remembering how completely and utterly unworthy he is of Enjolras’ gentleness does add just that little bit of extra despair. “I want you to do something for me, my love.”

“Anything for you,” Grantaire mumbles, though he has to fight the urge to flinch away from Enjolras’ touch to do it. What he _wants_ is to be left alone to feel like garbage. Actually, what he really wants is to get so drunk he can’t stand and then slice his arms up with a razor, but he won’t do that. That particular path of coping has been cut off for a long time, and he knows consciously what a mistake it would be to return to it. 

That doesn’t mean it’s not _tempting._ It probably always will be, honestly. But he has a new healthy life, and a therapist, and a routine of medication, and everything else that helps him manage. Which doesn’t make him feel any better at moments like this. 

See, Grantaire has _fucked things up._ For the last week or so, he has not done one thing right. And it’s not like he hasn’t been trying, which is maybe the worst part. He misses the old days, when he could have counted on Enjolras to lose his temper and scream at him for not being able to get the new members he’d promised to bring to a meeting, instead of this gentle comfort that feels like it’s going to make him crawl out of his skin.

Now, there’s a thought… Especially when Enjolras continues, “Promise me you’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do? I know how hard it is for you to ask for things when you’re…” _like this,_ he doesn’t say, which is a kindness. “Struggling. So just promise me, that if there’s anything I can do, you’ll tell me what it is. Can you do that for me?”

For him. 

Grantaire has always said he could do anything for him. _Just_ said it, in fact. And he knows that’s why Enjolras has decided to phrase it like that. And also, he will. Because he adores Enjolras, and he doesn’t want to fuck that up too. Without that exact constellation of mental circumstances, he never would have the courage to ask, but things are what they are, and so he speaks. Grantaire has never been particularly good at remaining thoughtfully silent, anyway.

“You could beat me,” Grantaire blurts, before he can talk himself out of it. The shame comes quick enough, though, washing over him in such a broiling wave that he actually briefly wishes he were dead so he didn’t have to see the expression in Enjolras’ eyes. Not that he’s looking. He doesn’t want to know. Disgust, or pity, or whatever other emotion might be there.

Enjolras’ voice, when he speaks after the longest second in human history, is calm. “And that would help?”

“Yeah,” Grantaire mumbles. The urge to do something, to get away, to physically hide his face, is almost overwhelming, but he knows he shouldn’t. That would just upset Enjolras more, and, fuck, yet another thing to add to the long list of Grantaire’s failures as a human being. Lousy boyfriend. And he really tries to be good at that, even if he’s terrible at everything else. Enjolras deserves the best. And yet he’s stuck with Grantaire. 

“Can you tell me a little more, my love?”

Grantaire shakes his head, quickly, once. Bizarrely, Enjolras’ response is to kiss him softly on the forehead.

“That’s all right. You okay like this?”

“I’m not an invalid, Enjolras. You don’t have to treat me like I’m made of glass,” Grantaire snaps. The burst of anger makes him feel better for approximately two seconds, before it is replaced with guilt. More guilt. Hooray. Just what he wanted. Every depressive’s favorite emotion.

“You are sick, though.”

“If the next words out of your mouth are a lecture on taking mental health issues as seriously as other health problems, I’ll…” Grantaire can’t come up with a suitable threat. ‘Jump out a window’ seems unfunny, somehow, and would probably earn him yet another lecture, which isn’t exactly the kind of discipline he’s craving, so he just sighs. “It’s fine.”

“Not if you’re suffering. Not to me. It’s never fine if you aren’t well, my love.”

“Sorry,” Grantaire whispers, though he knows that doesn’t make sense. Those words from Enjolras make him feel peculiarly as though he’s about to burst into tears. 

“Particularly not if you’re asking me to hurt you,” and, oh, Grantaire _knew_ he would regret saying that, but he did promise, didn’t he, to tell Enjolras what he needed. And so he did. And he does. He’s not making any sense, even in his own head, but it’s the truth. 

“Sorry,” Grantaire repeats, and now he can’t take it anymore. He draws his legs up to his chest, flinching minutely away from Enjolras’ touch. He feels filthy all over, disgusting, in a remarkably literal way. His skin is crawling with the horror of being him. 

“For what?”

“That you have to deal with me,” Grantaire says to the floor. He wants Enjolras to go, but he can’t bring himself to say as much, because he also desperately wants him to stay. He wants to not have to think, is what he wants, and the usual ways of getting there are unhealthy and self-destructive and thus forbidden, and he won’t ask Enjolras for the gift of oblivion a second time. He won’t beg for it, not outside their play, because that’s just too much humiliation for him to bear. Enjolras has assured him a thousand times that he doesn’t think there’s anything shameful in Grantaire’s submission, but it’s hard to remember that when he’s desperate to be degraded like this.

“What would you be looking for?”

“What?”

“In a scene. If we were to do one now. Or soon. What would you be looking for.” Enjolras sounds so calm. It makes Grantaire nauseous, in comparison to himself. “Because I feel really differently about it depending on… Are you looking for distraction, or is this another form of self-harm?”

Grantaire takes a moment to think about that, because it’s a pretty fair question. And again, he’d promised Enjolras the truth, so the truth is what he will get. “I guess… a little of both, but mostly... what I really want, though, is… I just… I can’t do anything right. I want to be good.”

“You are,” Enjolras replies, automatically, and Grantaire sighs.

“No, that won’t work. I don’t… I can’t believe it. I can’t even stand to hear it, when it’s just…”

“You need to earn it.”

“If I could go down, maybe I could get built back up again. If I could feel… anything, really…” Other than the vague haze of misery that’s captured him over the last few days. 

Enjolras shifts back a little, and his tone is clinical now, focused, and clear. There’s something reassuring about that. “Gradually, or at once?”

Those are the two ways they start a scene. If Enjolras eases him into it, Grantaire usually doesn’t get down as far. But if he moves fast, the start of the scene is often too much for him. Now, though, he knows he’d fall quickly. “At once.”

“Scale of one to ten, how much pain do you want?”

“Um.” Grantaire can do this. This, negotiating a scene, hashing out the finer details, is normal. He knows his role here. “Not above five to start. All the way to ten once I’m down. I want to really… yeah.”

“And how mean do you want me to be?”

Meaner than I am to myself, Grantaire doesn’t say. “As mean as you want. Uh. The kind of mean where you make me cry so hard I forget about everything else. Just, like. I think that would help me. More than anything else.”

“So humiliation, but—cruel?”

“Yes.” Of course Enjolras understands. Enjolras always understands. “Not, you know, not just the fun sexy kind. I want you to make me feel it.”

“Sex?”

“Yes please.”

“Okay. That’s all good to know.” Enjolras smiles at him, tenderly, and reaches a hand toward Grantaire, tucking one of his stray curls behind an ear. 

Grantaire tries to swallow back his disappointment. He’s not sure what the point of Enjolras’ little quiz was, but he’s not getting anything more than comfort he can’t accept. “I should… I think I’m going to go.” Where, he doesn’t know, but he can no longer bear Enjolras’ gentleness.

And then Enjolras slaps him once, hard, across the face, and Grantaire finds himself shaping words with no air behind them. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Enjolras says, no, growls. “You go nowhere without my permission, is that clear.

Grantaire tries to mouth an excuse, his stomach flipping with sheer excitement. It’s the first non-horrible emotion he’s felt in days. The second slap is even harder, backhanded, catching him square on the cheek. He cries out a little with the force of it

“I don’t need to hear your whining right now.”

“Sorry, sir.”

Enjolras slaps him again, across the other cheek. “I told you to shut up. Are you too stupid to follow a simple order? Or are you willfully disobeying me?”

Catching on even through the spinning rush in his head, Grantaire shakes his head. 

Another slap. “Answer me when I speak to you.”

“Neither, sir, I’m sorry—“

Grantaire flinches, but this time Enjolras doesn’t slap him, but he does grab Grantaire’s hair hard, wrenching his head all the way back and stepping in close, so that his face is right next to Grantaire’s. Grantaire watches every tiny movement of his lips as he shapes the words, “You have my permission to beg. Go.”

And then he releases Grantaire, who stumbles, instinctually, to his knees. Normally he wouldn’t be able to make himself do this so early, but it’s easy, it’s _natural,_ the stream of words. “I need you to hurt me, sir, please.” 

His eyes go to the ground, to Enjolras’ feet, but Enjolras catches him under the chin with those strong, unyielding fingers and forces him to look up, look deep into his eyes. “Why?”

“Because…” Grantaire’s voice breaks, and he can’t speak. He can’t say it, not like this, not with Enjolras looking right through him like that. He flinches a little, anticipating another blow.

"Because you're a filthy little slut that's made for it, isn't that right? Because you belong to me and you want me to remind you of that every way possible?"

Grantaire would nod if Enjolras didn't have such a tight grip on his chin.

“I wish you could see yourself like this,” Enjolras says instead. And the words are cruel, but Grantaire knows this is mercy, not making him speak, not making him do anything but listen, but accept exactly what he’d asked for. “Falling to your knees because you know that’s where you belong. Groveling for my touch, even if all I’m going to do is hurt you. I wish you could understand just how pathetic you are.”

Enjolras’ cruelty sends an electric shiver up his spine, better than any touch, even the crystalline sharpness of pain. It closes out everything else in the world. 

“Give me a color,” Enjolras commands, completely imperious, somehow even more dominating than any of the previous filth.

“Green. Please—“

“Good. Get your clothes off. I’ll be back.”

Grantaire listens to the echoes of Enjolras’ footsteps as he treads out of the room. He scrambles to get naked, too rushed in the need to obey Enjolras’ order before he returns to indulge in any of the passing thoughts about his own ugliness as it is exposed. None of that matters now. He’s under Enjolras’ control, so he doesn’t have to worry about anything. Whatever his body looks like, it is _Enjolras’_ and that means it is good enough. 

His head starts to spin pleasantly. He’s slipping under already, the sick nothingness of earlier replaced with warm gratitude for Enjolras, for the fact that Enjolras is willing to do this for him, own him and take care of him like this. 

He sees Enjolras’ feet first. He’s wearing the boots, the ones he bought especially for scenes. They’re shiny and black and have a slight heel. Grantaire’s mouth waters, knowing what is coming. 

“Please, sir—“

“Shut up,” Enjolras growls. “Am I going to have to gag you to get you to keep silent?”

_No, sir,_ Grantaire thinks, but doesn’t say, because he is capable of learning, despite all evidence to the contrary.

“You don’t say anything unless you want me to stop, understand? Sounds are allowed, but not a word.”

Grantaire nods slightly.

“Good.” He taps the ground suddenly, sharply, with a cane Grantaire hadn’t realized he was holding. “Go on then. Kiss it.”

Grantaire crawls forward, feeling the heat of Enjolras’ eyes on his naked back, and bends to kiss the toe of each of Enjolras’ boots. He wishes Enjolras would let him go on, but he won’t try more without permission, just stays sprawled out there, head bent nearly to the ground, naked and stretched out before Enjolras.

The cane lands, hard and sudden, on his ass. He cries out in surprise as much as in pain. He would swear, but he remembers his orders, and bites down on his lip to keep himself silent. Another blow falls. 

Grantaire watches Enjolras’ boots disappear as he circles him. He must be behind Grantaire now, perhaps going for a better angle—yes, because the third strike is harder than the other two together. A fourth, now, and the pain is growing sharp and hot and perfect. 

There’s something so simple about this. Grantaire is on the ground, and Enjolras is looming over him and hurting him. 

Usually, Enjolras would warm him up for quite a while before taking the cane to him, especially before caning him this _hard._ He must be welting all over, perfect thick raised lines to mark his submission. 

“Get your hands behind the back of your neck, and spread your legs.”

The position leaves him feeling even more exposed and degraded, which he would guess was the point, if he were being asked to guess stuff. Which he isn’t. Enjolras isn’t asking anything of him, except to kneel here and take it. Or safeword, he supposes. 

“I like marking up your ass. You know why?”

Grantaire is very grateful that he’s been ordered to stay silent. The cane lands again. 

“You bruise beautifully. Of course you do. Because you were made for this.”

Grantaire shivers at that, even before the cane comes down again, harder than before.

And also, oh, this time the cane lands on his inner thigh, terrifyingly close to his balls, and the pain is vicious and _bad_ and he doesn’t want it, wants to flinch away, wants it to stop, but he keeps silent, biting back his pleas. He’ll fall into it soon, he reminds himself, and he trusts Enjolras to take him there. He wants to go to that floating place where the pain becomes irrelevant and he’s at peace with everything, but he knows he has to suffer to get there. That’s okay. He _wants_ that, because right now, thinking about nothing but the relentlessness of the pain and how badly he wants it to stop, he is free from the prison of his own mind.

Enjolras leaves sharp lines across both his thighs and his ass. Grantaire counts ten on each side, hard and even and unyielding. He stays quiet, but his breath is hitching on sobs, by the time the blows stop falling. The cane comes under his chin, poking at him until he kneels back up. Then Enjolras’ hand is caressing his face, tender and so warm, and tears fill Grantaire’s eyes. Enjolras grips his jaw firmly and tilts Grantaire’s head up until he’s meeting Enjolras’ eyes, burning bright and so, so blue.

“Number,” Enjolras orders, because regular traffic light safewords are not good enough for the ultimate control freak that is his boyfriend. Instead, he makes Grantaire rate how he’s doing on a scale of zero (fine) to ten (about to freak). He makes fun of Enjolras for it on a regular basis, but it’s also very… sweet. It’s a big part of why he needed this. Enjolras cares, and he knows that, but like this he can let Enjolras show it without feeling like he’d rather crawl directly out of his own skin. 

“Uh, three? Sir.”

“Hmm.” Enjolras taps the cane idly against the side of his boot. “And here I thought I’d made such a good start.” The cane comes up again, pushing at his shoulders until he’s back in the same groveling position, ass up on the ground. “I suppose I’ll just have to keep trying. Another ten it is.”

The cane falls three more times on the left cheek of Grantaire’s bruised and burning ass, three more on the right. Enjolras teases the cool, firm wood over the welts, tracing each of them before bringing it down with an audible swish. Grantaire tries not to flinch, though, tries to be good. And he doesn’t beg as they fall, although when a seventh strike lands right across the width of his ass, crossing the other welts, he has to bite down hard on his lower lip to stop himself. “Sir, please—“ Grantaire gasps, and Enjolras stops right away, kneeling down next to him. 

“Number?”

“Four, but can I— can I have a gag, please? I can’t… I can’t stop myself, and I want to be good, I…” The words force themselves out, somehow a thousand times easier now that Enjolras has begun beating him down, making him into what he needs to be. 

“Hmm.” Enjolras cards his fingers through Grantaire’s hair, and Grantaire becomes suddenly conscious of the fact that he’s started to sweat. “No, I don’t think so. Ten more for speaking without permission. That’ll take us up to a nice even fifty. Isn’t that satisfying?”

Grantaire is at least with it enough not to answer. Enjolras chuckles a little, delightfully cruel. His hands are still in Grantaire’s hair, tugging more than petting now. 

“You’re going to be good for me, Grantaire.” His full name falls from Enjolras’ lips like honey. “And I’m going to take whatever I want from you.”

Yes, sir, Grantaire does not say, because he is in fact capable of learning and does want to be able to use his ass for sitting sometime this century.

“Right now, what I want to do is finish your beating. Thirteen more. They’ll be hard, all over your ass and thighs. And you’re going to take it, because that’s what you’re for, isn’t it?”

Yes. Yes, it is. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. 

“That’s right.” Enjolras pulls on his hair hard enough to really hurt now. “You’re mine to play with, to hurt as much as I want to. That’s the only point of something like you.”

Enjolras releases his hair, letting him back into his kneel, and canes him again, another vicious diagonal strike. He follows this with a neat X, criss-crossing Grantaire’s throbbing skin, and Grantaire lets out a wordless howl of pain.

“Ten more,” Enjolras says, as composed and calm as if he’s checking over the grocery list. “And I’ve changed my mind, these aren’t going to be on your ass. I want to see how evenly I can stripe your calves.”

This does not require a response, so fortunately Grantaire can just kneel there in anticipation of the pain. When it comes, it’s splendid, the first strike falling just beneath his bended knee. 

“Beautiful,” Enjolras murmurs, and Grantaire shivers at the praise, though it’s directed more at the marks than at him. The cane traces across one of his calves, then the other, about an inch lower. Marking out the path for the next strike. It lands just as hard, and Grantaire can’t choke back a yell. “Careful, slut. That was _dangerously_ close, and I’m sure you don’t want another ten?”

He really, really doesn’t. He can just about wrap his mind around enduring eight more, but more of the cane, especially on his already-damaged skin, might be more than he could bear. He bites down on his lip as Enjolras marks out the next three. The strikes are moving lower now, away from the big muscle and into the thinner part of his leg, where the thudding pain of impact gives way to stinging agony. Enjolras hits faster but a little less hard here, maybe so the stripes will match. Each is one precise cane-width apart. And tears are rolling down Grantaire’s cheeks, lost in the floor, by the time the last lands just above his ankles.

“Very nice,” Enjolras murmurs. He trails something warm—not the cane this time, maybe his finger?—up Grantaire’s welted legs, across his thighs, and over his ass. “But there’s so much more of you that needs hurting, isn’t there?”

A few more tears escape at the thought of even more pain.

“Give me a number.”

“Four,” he says again, because this is brutal but it’s also what he needs. He’s still not entirely in subspace, not falling sweet and free the way he wants to, but he’s also not thinking about anything except the pain, and enduring it and pressing through, and that’s enough.

“That’s a good little whore,” Enjolras says, his voice sweet as candy. “Now up on your hands and knees. Crawl after me.” 

And Grantaire does, the shame of it exquisite enough that he can hardly feel the discomfort of the hard ground under his bare skin. Enjolras doesn’t take him far, just to the kitchen table. He taps its surface firmly. 

“Up you get.”

Grantaire clambers up onto the table, aware of how inelegant it is. Enjolras doesn’t comment, though, just arranges Grantaire the way he wants him. He directs him to lie on his stomach, pressing his hard cock uncomfortably into the table, and spread his arms and legs. 

“Stay. Count to twenty in your head, and I’ll be right back.”

Grantaire is distantly grateful for that, for the fact that Enjolras doesn’t ask if it’s okay but also lets him know how long he has to wait. And, of course, he does as he’s told. 

At the count of fifteen, he feels a rough scrape of rope over his left wrist. He stays perfectly in place as Enjolras ties him down, one cuff of rope around each of his limbs, fastening him in place. He’s effectively immobilized. 

Soon after, the pain starts. He recognizes the familiar touch of Enjolras’ favorite flogger, a beast of thick leather strands. Enjolras begins with his shoulders, building up to even, neat strikes all over his back. He’s warming into the pain now, the blows pushing him higher and higher into a state of something like euphoria. The bondage helps a great deal, because he’s totally helpless here. Turned into a thing to receive Enjolras’ will, whether it’s sex or pain or nothing at all. An empty vessel, ready to be filled.

Enjolras pulls him up by his hair again, looks into his eyes. Grantaire tries to focus, but cannot. Enjolras smiles slightly. “There it is, pet. Are you going down for me? You can answer.”

“Yes, sir,” Grantaire slurs, his voice dream-like. Enjolras’ smile widens. 

“There’s my good slut. I’m going to hurt you a little more, all right? You be quiet for me again.”

Grantaire falls silent easily, and the flogger starts up again. The pain is so perfect and so endless. The flogger’s tails are wide, and Enjolras is hitting him hard and fast, carpeting his back with blows so swiftly that he’s soon one great mass of burning, throbbing pain. All for Enjolras. 

“I wonder,” Enjolras says out loud. “Should I turn you over and beat the rest of you as well, or should I let you suck my cock?”

This is clearly a rhetorical question. 

“You’ve been very good,” Enjolras continues, as the flogger falls hard on Grantaire’s lower back. “Maybe good enough that you’re worth fucking, and not just tying down and hurting.”

Grantaire can’t prevent a choked noise from falling out at that, at the absolute beautiful cruelty of that line of thought, of being reserved for just torment like this, of never being good enough for a more intimate touch. He can’t decide whether it’s wonderful or horrible, and he doesn’t have to, because the blows stop falling and Enjolras is coming around the front again, drawing Grantaire’s head up.

He doesn’t have to do anything. Enjolras doesn’t even make him ask for it, though he would gladly beg for the chance. He just lifts Grantaire’s head up painfully by the hair, making his shoulders strain, and, bracing with his other hand, pushes his hard cock between Grantaire’s lips. 

It’s hard to make it good, although he’s certainly trying his best. He can hardly move, tied to the table like he is. So instead he relaxes into it, into the iron grip of Enjolras’ fingers in his hair. He lets Enjolras fuck his throat, not noticing or caring if he gags. He wants to choke on it, wants it to hurt, and wants Enjolras to do it anyway, to use him without any regard for Grantaire’s comfort or pleasure. 

And Enjolras, in his infinite generosity, gives him just that. He uses Grantaire like a toy, making him strain and ache and choke. The angle makes it harder for Grantaire, makes his neck ache, makes him choke on every thrust. He doesn’t care, or rather, he’s glad for it. He wants to hurt for Enjolras. He wants to earn Enjolras’ pleasure with his own suffering. And Enjolras lets him, and uses him, and then pulls out and comes all over Grantaire’s face. 

“Leave it,” he orders, his voice rough. “Clean that up, though.”

A little come has dripped down on to the table. Grantaire stretches down, shifting as much as the ropes will allow him to, to lick it up.

Enjolras smirks—Grantaire can hear it in his voice. “Filthy whore. Now hold still until I move you, I’m not done.”

Grantaire remains, tongue pressed against the table, flushed head to toe with pain and desire and delicious shame, and waits. Enjolras moves quickly, untying the ropes around his wrists and ankles. Then he tugs Grantaire up onto his knees, arranging him carefully so his legs are spread wide, his hands behind his neck and elbows out, and his head bowed. It’s a present position, and Grantaire feels it—feels exposed, feels on display. It’s a good feeling. Everything is good when he’s in this headspace. He’s practically flying.

He almost jumps out of his skin when something hard and firm presses against his cock, tracing a line. He doesn’t realize it’s the cane until Enjolras has hit him with it. A shocked, agonized cry, falls from his lips, and Enjolras laughs, so delightfully cruel. “Can you come from this, I wonder? From me beating your cock?”

Grantaire can’t answer, can only howl as another stripe falls, just below the sensitive head. Enjolras traces the cane up and down Grantaire’s straining erection, catching on the newly formed welts. It’s not the same cane as before. This one is thinner and whippier and Grantaire _knows_ that Enjolras isn’t hitting him that hard but it’s agonizing. Enjolras taps, taps, taps it, not hard enough to hurt, but he knows what’s coming and he twitches, straining to stay in place, and then the cane whips across his erection again and Grantaire sobs.

“I like you like this. Staying right where I put you, so I can hurt you.” Enjolras moves the cane lower, tapping at Grantaire’s balls now. 

“No, please,” Grantaire gasps, and then bites his lips. Enjolras grabs his hair and yanks his head back all the way, looming over him. 

“Do you want me to stop, R?”

Grantaire shakes his head.

“Answer me out loud. Do you want to use your safeword?”

“No, sir,” he says, and means it. It was just momentary fear. He wants whatever Enjolras chooses to do to him, and he’s in the right headspace to take it. 

“You want to keep going? Are you _sure_?”

“Yes, sir.”

Enjolras tugs at his hair a little bit. “I won’t be disappointed if you want to stop. I will be if you lie to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. I understand. I don’t want you to stop, please.”

“Do you want me not to hit your balls? We can keep going without that. Believe me, I can get creative.”

As delicious as that sounds—“No, please. I want you to do whatever you want with me. Please, sir.”

“Then I’m going to have to punish you for speaking out of turn. You’ll take an extra ten. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Grantaire squeaks, although the thought of ten hits, especially punishment-hard blows, landing _there_ is enough to make him want to twist out of position and cover himself protectively. He doesn’t, though. If the pain is too much when it comes, he’ll yellow out or stop the scene. He hopes he doesn’t have to. He wants Enjolras to drive him even further down.

But the pain, when it comes, isn’t on his genitals, or the sharp cut of the cane. It’s a hard, thudding blow—the flogger, he thinks—across his chest. This pain feels good, like a slap, reassuringly solid. He lets out a wordless sigh as another lands. “Color, ‘Aire,” Enjolras orders, giving him the third a little harder, so the tails of the flogger catch his nipple.

“So so so green, thank you sir—“

“I didn’t ask for commentary. I think I should give you another ten.” 

The flogger is falling evenly now, in the familiar figure-eight pattern, no time between blows. Grantaire gasps and sighs but does not speak as Enjolras lands the flogger across his shoulders, down his chest and upper arms, and, a little lighter so it stings but won’t bruise, on his stomach. 

“Twenty,” Enjolras says, self-satisfaction evident in his voice, and drops the flogger. “Spread your legs wider, you’ve gotten out of position.”

Grantaire does as he’s told. The cane starts to tap at him again, but he’s not afraid of it now. When the pain comes, hot and shocking and spreading from his neck to his knees, it feels good, cleansing, perfect. He would plead for more if he were allowed to talk, but he isn’t. He only has to take what Enjolras offers him. Which is two more hard, sharp strikes to his balls, each making him clench and sob. He stays in position only with every bit of effort that remains to him. 

“Look at you, hard while I hurt you here,” Enjolras says, running the tip of the cane across Grantaire’s now hyper-sensitive balls. “You really are filthy, you know. I can see how badly you want it. How desperate you are for me to hurt you or fuck you or _anything._ Isn’t that right? Answer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Disgusting,” Enjolras murmurs, his voice low and heavy, and shame and want spirals through Grantaire’s whole burning body as Enjolras hits him again. “Beaten senseless and still spreading your legs for it, wearing my cum, pleading for anything I choose to do for you. At least you know your place, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what is that?”

“I’m yours, sir, all yours, your property, your fucktoy, anything you want me to be, I’ll do anything you want me to—“ After staying quiet so long, the words come out in a babble. Enjolras usually makes him talk a lot during scenes, which he has a real love-hate relationship with, because he doesn’t consider himself to be a particularly good sexy-talker. Luckily, all shame went out the window, like, 30 minutes earlier in this scene. 

“I want you to come, slut, come while I hurt you. Show me what a dirty thing you really are, come on,” he urges, and the cane lands across Grantaire’s cock, and, somewhat to his own surprise, he does it. 

The orgasm that rolls over him is so intense that he loses track of everything, lost for minutes in the white heat of the pleasure that courses through his body. When it ends, he’s been maneuvered onto his back, and Enjolras is behind him, arms wrapped around him like a particularly clingy octopus. 

“Hi,” Enjolras murmurs into his hair.

“Did you really do that entire elaborate scene just so you could cuddle me without me complaining?” Grantaire accuses.

“Maybe.”

“I love you, you idiot.”

“I love you too. More than anything. I hope you know that.”

“I do.” He shifts around. “This table’s not very comfortable, you know, and we have a perfectly good bed, like… right over there.”

“You think you can walk?”

Grantaire sticks his tongue out, not that Enjolras can see. “I think you might have to carry me.”

“Fair is fair.”

Obviously, Enjolras can’t actually carry him, but he lets Grantaire lean on him hard while he helps him off the table and onto the ground. He does have to support a lot of Grantaire’s weight, because Grantaire is exhausted. He also doesn’t care, leaning happily into Enjolras. He lets Enjolras steer him into the bathroom, where he washes Grantaire’s stomach and cock and face clean. “Smart,” Grantaire mumbles. “Don’t wanna get to sticky.” He giggles a little at that.

“You’re loopy, darling.”

“Your fault,” Grantaire replies, collapsing back onto Enjolras and allowing himself to be half-carried into bed. The sheets feel soft and cool and delightful against his mostly-reddened skin, and though the places where he’s welted, like his ass and thighs, throb a little, it’s pleasant. Everything is, hazy and safe as Enjolras draws him back into his arms. He holds Grantaire close, his head to his chest, and they breathe together.

Soon, Grantaire knows, he’ll surface from this sweet subspace. Enjolras will want to check over his welts and talk through the scene. He’ll settle back into normal, his depression maybe not cured but perhaps lightened a bit.

For now, though, he doesn’t have to do any of that. He just lies, safe and drifting, in Enjolras’ arms. He closes his eyes, and Enjolras’ lips land, soft as a butterfly’s wing, on his forehead, and Grantaire smiles. “Thank you. I really needed that.”

“I’m here for you, love. Always. And besides, I enjoyed myself a great deal.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course. You’re amazing, ‘Aire. My sweet, precious love. I love being with you. I love the way you trust me, when you go down like that.”

“Mm. Yay, say more nice stuff about me,” Grantaire mumbles, and Enjolras laughs.

“As much as you want, my love.” 


End file.
